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Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Using Task Cards in Interactive Notebooks

I have been debating using task cards in my interactive math notebooks (and I even started creating a few reflection task cards specifically for interactive notebooks before taking time to do some other projects). Then, I came across Anna's post from Simply Skilled in Second about how she used the cards in reading, and I started thinking about using them in math again. We have been working on integers, and we were finishing up with comparing and ordering integers. I wanted them to have some work saved in their notebooks to reference later, but I also wanted to use it as an opportunity for them to show proof of their learning. So, off to task cards I went!

I started by printing off the task cards four sets of cards to a page.

Then, I gave each group of four students a stack with all of the task cards (There were 5 quarter sheets of paper with four task cards on each for them to cut apart). I instructed them to cut them apart and give one card from each piece of paper to each student in their group. Therefore, they all ended up with five cards, one from each sheet of cards.

I chose to do it this way so that they all ended up with a different task card, but they were all working on similar type questions. This made it even more beneficial for them when they had to check each other's work.

The students glued them on the left side of their notebooks, answered the questions, and justified their answers. That was a HUGE part of this, and of course some of them had trouble with it. I am so glad that I required them to justify their answers--writing in math is such a huge focus for us, and they need all the practice they can get.

As I mentioned before, they traded notebooks with someone else in their group and checked to see if they agreed with the answers. This is where it came in handy to have them all working on different cards.

You could easily differentiate with task cards in the notebooks, too. Most of my math task cards are differentiated so that students have many different ways to show their understanding!

I am currently writing a blog post about your idea of using task cards with the interactive notebook. I am going to link to your website but can't figure out who writes this website (a name) to add to the blog. I just thought it would be more personal to add the name of the blog creator. If not I will just link to your website.